Grace Community Church for the last few weeks have defied the California’s government to shutdown it’s indoor worship services. The church and it’s Pastor John MacArthur have been sent a letter by the states’ government threatening to fine or even arrest those that don’t abide by orders given to close due to the recent spike in coronavirus cases in the state.
None of Grace Community Church’s members (that total 7000) have tested positive for COVID-19, John MacArthur told Shannon Bream on Fox News at Night Monday after she read a statement from Dr. Kevin Kavanagh that said, ‘Churches could be the deadly places in the COVID-19 pandemic. The combination of singing in close quarters and decreased ventilation is nothing short of a petri dish (or cell plate) for viral growth.”
“The lockdown of people…and to shut down churches is just not warranted by the reality of the virus.” He adamantly stated, “We feel like we are the most essential reality in the world.”
MacArthur told Shannon Bream that, “Jesus is Lord of His beloved church, which He redeemed with His own blood. He is the head of our church. Governor Newsom is not the head of the church. Mayor Garcetti is not the head the church. We respect them for their temporal officer leadership in our government that when they move into the life of the church and tell the church what it can do their usurping a role that they don’t have. The Constitution doesn’t give them the power to do that, and they don’t certainly have the spiritual power to do that; to usurp the power that only Jesus Christ has over His church.”
Bream asked Pastor MacArthur about a response that California Pastor Gavin Ortlund wrote to John MacArthur this past Sunday that addressed the statement “Churches are shutting down—large churches shutting down until, they say, January. I don’t have any way to understand that other than they don’t know what a church is, and they don’t shepherd their people.” Pastor Ortlund said that he stands with “MacArthur in affirming the vital importance of corporate worship, as well as the importance of standing up for religious liberty,” but questions that this situation is more complicated than MacArthur’s stated perspective allows. Ortlund gives four Biblical values that should help inform church leaders’ decision-making in this current situation. They are:
- the importance of worship (Hebrews 10:25)
- love for neighbor (Mark 12:31)
- obedience to government (Romans 13:1-7)
- maintaining a good witness (Colossians 4:5-6)
Bream’s question regarded Ortlund’s statement, “What concerns me about defying the state order right now is that it seems to prioritize 1 at the expense of 2-4.”
“We are church that has a reputation for the last fifty years of obeying the government,” MacArthur stated first and gave examples of how Grace Community Church has an honorable reputation with society and officials. “But never before has the government invaded the territory that belongs only to the Lord Jesus Christ, and told us we can’t meet, we can’t worship, we can’t sing!?,” he responded. “There’s no power given to the government to make those kinds of calls against us.”
“We love our neighbors. We’re not spreading anything but the gospel.”